Glory In The Flower
by Nikki-9-Doors
Summary: When Morgan picks up a phone call that wasn't meant for him and winds up meeting the sister of a former-UnSub's victim, he learns that love can be found anywhere and sometimes, things happen for a reason. Cheesy, three-shot, romance. Morgan/OC
1. Chapter 1

_~~~ Popped into my head. A little random, maybe ridiculous, but hopefully you bear with me and enjoy. Reference episode: "Tabula Rasa", season three. ~~~_

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_**"All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door..." ~ John Kenneth Galbraith**_

His name was Brain Matloff. His story went like this:

His mother had abandoned him. He started strangling women. The BAU caught on to him. He jumped from a building. He fell to the ground. He lost his memory. He awoke from a coma. He regained his memory. He pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life.

It didn't read _well_. But it read better than a lot of the murderers the BAU had left in their wake. At the very least, it was a story with a solid conclusion.

When the BAU had left Matloff, it was 2008. He held a skeleton in his arms. His first, he said. His first kill. They didn't know her name. They returned to Quanitco before DNA came through.

But her name was Anastasia Vermont. She had a twin, Annabel. They were identical. It was Annabel who'd been called when the dental records were confirmed. She'd requested to see what was left of the body, looked down at it and thought – _that's what I'd look like, if I were strangled and left in the ground to rot for four years. _

The Blue Ridge Strangler. Annabel had heard a lot about him in the news, first in 2004 – not long after her sister had gone missing – and then again, in 2008, when he'd come out of his coma…not long before her sister had been found. But all the time's Annabel had encountered his name in the news, she'd never once contemplated the idea Anastasia had been his starting point.

She always thought Anastasia would come back alive.

Actually, she never thought Anastasia would come back at all. She thought Anastasia had run away, and would keep running, forever. That's what Annabel would have done, if she were Anastasia.

Anastasia and Annabel had grown up with, obviously, the same set of parents. They'd had the same group of friends and eaten the same breakfast cereal. But some way, somehow, during some unsure time, Anastasia and Annabel had become as different as different could be.

Annabel had become responsible. Mature. By the time their mother died when they were seventeen, Annabel had already taken up cooking and laundry and been rewarded a partial-scholarship to a local university.

Anastasia had had a baby.

She was born two years after their mother died, named Aurelia and not thought much of by her daydreaming mother – Mr. Vermont and Annabel took care of her more often than Anastasia. It was Annabel who'd awoken to her cries on the morning when Anastasia had left for her bi-weekly jog and never returned. By that time, Aurelia was five. Too old to be crying really, except for when she couldn't find her mommy.

Annabel remembered calling Anastasia's cellphone to find it ringing on the countertop. She didn't take her phone running. She'd waited three extra hours for her sister to return, then called the cops. Eventually she'd been reported missing. There'd been a mediocre search, but everyone suspected Anastasia had up and left. Annabel included. Mr. Vermont hadn't been very nice to his daughter since she'd brought home the news she was pregnant.

In 2008, Aurelia was nine. She lived with Annabel. Mr. Vermont lived with them too. He had a pension. Annabel had a job with the government that generated a decent salary. She got the call about Anastasia's dental records – filed in a missing person's database ages ago – matching a skeleton dug-up by a one-time amnesiac serial killer only twenty-seven minutes and three point two seconds after breaking up with her boyfriend.

And it was only three months after that, with Anastasia buried and the ring she always wore returned to them (after spending years in an old woman's jewelry box, apparently) that Annabel, at twenty-eight, was diagnosed with the same type of cancer that had killed her mother.

So she was deterred from her mission. Slightly. The mission she'd schemed up within seconds of seeing her sister's dead body, devoid of flesh and recognizable features. But two years and multiple, painful treatments of chemo later, she was in remission, Aurelia was in eighth grade, and her father was in a nursing home.

Annabel could start putting her life back on track. Or maybe it had never veered off track to begin with, because it hadn't been on any particular one.

Annabel could start her life.

With her mission.

[XYZ]

As far as mission's went, hers was simple. It required minimal effort, which was just her kind of thing. She rooted through a drawer. She found a card handed to her by the detective that had worked the Blue Ridge Strangler case. It was bent at the top left-hand corner and dirtied by pencil lead and other bottom-of-a-drawer grime. But the number was legible.

She called the detective. Explained who she was, and asked for a number.

Annabel had been reading the papers the week her sister's body was recovered.

Annabel knew her sister's murderer had been caught, tried, and sentenced.

And she knew why.

She attributed his arrest to the BAU. Both his first arrest, in 2004, and his second one, in 2008. She knew the local PD hadn't played a bit part, but she felt her gratitude flowing more in the general direction of the FBI.

It was their number which she asked for. And received.

[XYZ]

Derek Morgan's story was one very much different from Brian Matloff's. It couldn't be summed up as neatly, and didn't yet have any sort of solid conclusion. So far it went like this:

His father had been shot. He'd been molested. He'd become a cop, worked his way up to FBI. He had been unit chief at one point, and then stepped down so the rightful man could own it once more. Now he was standing in that man's office.

Of all bizarre things, he was looking for a pen. A very specific pen, one with geeky physics jokes down the side. It belonged to Spencer Reid (Morgan's baby-girl Garcia buying it for him as an early Christmas present) but Morgan had stolen it, purely to irk him, and hid it in Aaron Hotchner's office. The one place he knew Reid would never think to look.

Now he couldn't find it, even though he was sure he remembered where he'd put it.

Now the phone was ringing.

Morgan looked around. Hotch was out – gone where, he couldn't imagine – and who would it harm, if he picked up the call?

"This is SSA Derek Morgan."

The question on the other end surprised him: "With the BAU?"

The voice was high-pitched. Perhaps because of this, it came across to him as naïve, but Morgan didn't think so. He thought it came across as naïve because of the pent-up hope residing so obviously in it.

"Yes," he replied, carefully, "Can I help you?"

"I know you must be busy," said the voice, naïve and high and hopeful as before, "But I'm in Quantico. I was hoping I could meet with one of you, or all of you. I just wanted to say thank you, in person." A pause, "You helped find Brian Matloff. He killed my sister. I…she was the first victim."

The one they'd never known the name of.

Morgan remembered the case instantly. It had been memorable, after all; jumping across a building's rooftop, the guy losing his memory. He felt a pull on his heart.

"What was her name?" he asked.

"Anastasia," came the response, "And I'm Annabel."

[XYZ]

They met at a coffee shop after work. He should've told the other members of his team but he didn't. He intended to. He'd tell them tomorrow.

He walked into the coffee shop and found her instantly, sickening as he realized he did so by looking for Matloff's type – brunette, and early twenties (or rather, would have been early twenties, six years ago). He hadn't known Annabel would look like her sister. But there she was, and she held out her hand for him to shake.

"We were twins," she said immediately.

"I'm so sorry," was the best he could offer.

"Let me buy you a coffee." She insisted.

"Let me buy you one." He countered.

She considered him. Then nodded. "Alright," she agreed, "But I'm still buying you one."


	2. Chapter 2

Morgan had intended to tell the team about the phone call. Keeping Matloff's victim's sister a secret was never really his plan. Not only did he think they had a _right_ to know, but furthermore, he didn't need a secret. He didn't need Annabel all to himself.

He _wanted_ her all to himself.

But that was a different thing entirely.

As a matter of fact, that was the thing keeping him from telling the team about her. First he'd have to come up with something (other than a casually thrown-out, "Oh yeah Hotch, I answered your phone.") to explain how he'd wound up receiving a call from Annabel Vermont. Then, something to explain how they'd begun dating.

He wasn't even so sure of that one himself. He just knew that she'd captivated him, from the sound of her high-pitched/naïve/hopeful voice on the phone to the way she'd managed to allow him to buy her a coffee while still buying one for _him_. It wasn't like the brief relationship he'd had with Tamara Barnes, another sister of a victim, nearly a year prior. It wasn't like the attraction he'd felt with Jordan Todd, JJ's short-lived replacement. It was something totally different…they _clicked_. Just like he and Garcia had clicked – but this time, on a level that wasn't platonic.

So the team didn't find out until almost two weeks later, as they took the jet to a crime call in Minnesota and his phone began to vibrate.

A couple of them glanced his way as he slid his phone out of his pocket and saw who the text message had come from. 'Annabel Vermont', read the screen. A grin leaked across his face even before he pressed 'read now'.

_Aurelia liked you. Kick some butt and come home safe. XO_

He'd had dinner with Annabel and Aurelia the night before. It was his first time meeting Aurelia, and he'd been taken with the quiet thirteen year-old; he loved kids.

Emily saw the grin. "Who's that from?" she asked, teasingly.

Morgan grinned wider, slipping the phone back in his pocket, "Nobody."

"New love interest?"

"None of your business."

But then he remembered that it was, or if not Emily's business then certainly Reid's, JJ's, and Hotch's, and retracted his statement.

"Actually, it's from Annabel Vermont."

"Should I be familiar with that name?" Emily asked.

"No," Morgan admitted, "But –" and he caught gazes with Hotch, Reid, and JJ, calling their attention to himself, "Remember Brain Matloff? She's the sister of his first victim."

Reid's face screwed itself up into a puzzled frown. JJ's eyebrows raised a little bit. Hotch remained impassive. Emily and Rossi listened with interest.

"How'd you get in contact with her?" Reid asked.

"She got in contact with me. Looking for names at the BAU, I guess. Wanted to say thanks for helping catch her sister's killer."

JJ nodded like this made sense. Rossi shrugged and went back to looking out the window. Hotch appeared to be only half-listening. Reid and Emily continued to hang onto his words.

Emily snorted, "So now your dating her? Only you could pick up chicks in our line of work."

"I pick up chicks!" Reid insisted in a voice slightly higher than usual, before blushing and busying himself with straightening out his sweater-vest.

Morgan chuckled, "Jealous, Emily?"

She snorted, "Not a chance."

The jet landed and the team departed from the plane. But Hotch hung back, and took hold of Morgan's arm lightly.

"Is it serious with her?" he asked.

"I dunno, Hotch. We've only been dating a week and a half."

Hotch studied Morgan's face quickly. Then he said, "I was in love once, Morgan. Sometimes you know when it's serious. Even after only a week and a half."

Morgan dropped his gaze. It was always hardest to talk to Hotch when he was human. Remembering the gruesome Minnesota crime scenes awaiting them, and the rest of the team outside, Morgan managed to raise his gaze back up and reply, "Yeah, Hotch. It's serious. That a problem?"

"No." The answer was swift. Morgan blinked. Some part of him had wanted Hotch to tell him it was a little bit sick to date the sister of a woman whose killer he'd chased off a rooftop. He'd wanted someone to at least acknowledge it.

Looked like that person would have to be himself.

"You don't think it's…wrong? A little too, 'my, what a small world!'?"

"I think some things happen for a reason," Hotch replied. He fished around for a moment in his inside breast pocket, then pulled out a physics-joke-covered pen.

"You should give this back to Reid," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

She'd been cancer-free for three years and Annabel was celebrating by having a party. She was throwing it in Roanoke so Morgan had made the four-hour drive down for the weekend. He was staying at her place and planning on taking her out for a fancy dinner afterwards. Aurelia was old enough to stay home alone at night for a few hours.

The party went well. They had an elaborate three-tiered cake with a different flavor for each tier (red velvet, chocolate, and confetti) with lemon-flavoured purple icing and a big number-three candle on top. Aurelia had had her friends from school over, Annabel had had her friends from work over, Mr. Vermont had come in from the nursing home and there was music and laughter and happiness.

Everyone went home around three o' clock and it was four hours later that Morgan and Annabel sat in a swanky restaurant, Annabel in a gorgeous teal silk dress and Morgan in a suit jacket with a ring in his pocket.

Garcia had helped him choose the ring. It was a circular diamond on a silver band with another tiny diamond on either side of it. She'd convinced him to get it from Kay jewelers because she thought their motto (_"Every kiss begins with Kay_,_"_) was, "beyond adorable, deserving major props and not for a moment to be passed up for Zales or People's or Tiffany's or any other sort of store dealing with diamonds and likesuch designs!"

He waited until dessert. She ordered crème brûlée, he ordered strawberry mousse, and they were sharing both. It came to a point where she was giggling and he was chuckling and he paused, leaned over, and kissed a bit of whipped cream off her chin.

"You know what would make this night even better?" he asked her.

"What?" she replied, a little breathless.

He pulled out the case, popped it open and held out to her the ring – "If you married me."

"Oh my gosh!"

Her hands clapped to her mouth, but they couldn't hide the smile that seemed to be growing bigger and bigger and bigger.

"I know one of us would have to relocate," Morgan continued at a rapid speed, so afraid of things going wrong that he felt the need to explain it all out, "And one of us would have to find a new job. But we'd work things out. It'd be worth it. This thing between us, I felt it from the very beginning. I –"

"Derek," Annabel stopped him, looking into his eyes and bring her hands down from her mouth to show off the full extent of her smile, "Stop talking. Put the ring on my finger."

She paused, then smiled more, if that were possible.

"My answer is yes."

[XYZ]

So Brian Matloff's story had a solid conclusion. And now Derek Morgan's did too.

Everything was looking good. He had a job he loved. A fiancée he loved. A soon-to-be-step-niece whom he loved. Friends he loved. He had a life he loved.

His story went like this:

His father had been shot. He'd been molested. He'd become a cop, worked his way up to FBI. He had been unit chief at one point, and then stepped down so the rightful man could own it once more. He had a fiancée.

And unlike Matloff, he was going to live happily ever after.

**"How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom, bold." ~ William Wordsworth **

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_~~~ Short and sweet and I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading! :) ~~~_


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